Smart-phone High-Definition videos have auto-focus and iris, and other ‘smart’ features that deliver extremely satisfying results—unless one attempts to walk. Though some models now include digital image stabilizers that reduce vibration caused by hand-holding, as soon as the operator moves around, image quality plummets due to unavoidable, larger-magnitude angular and spatial aberrations, and the results are shaky and disturbing.
For many years the human/camera interface has been smoothed by an invention marketed as the Steadicam® camera stabilizer, which can stabilize big, heavy production cameras as well as camcorders.
Efforts to create a camera stabilizer for small video devices, such as smartphones, have resulted in devices that add considerable weight and mass, and none yet permits a causal operator to achieve smooth camera moves that even come close to producing images of the quality we perceive through our own eyes.
What is needed is a camera stabilizer that can be used with relatively small video devices and preferably is light and compact and easy to use. easily balanced with a variety of phones and cases; that, when folded, is preferably as light and pocket-friendly as the user's phone; that unfolds in a set, repeatable balance; and that can be immediately employed for walk-around stable shots that require little or no particular skill, or by practiced operators to aggressively ‘pan and tilt’ shots that are dynamic, as well as artistic and smooth.
For purposes of description, the terms “pan,” “tilt,” and “roll” will be used to describe the angular motions of image devices, which are the terms used in the motion picture and TV industries to define camera moves. Moves about a substantially vertical axis perpendicular to the lens axis are ‘pan’ moves. Those about the lens axis are ‘roll’ moves. Moves about an axis that is substantially mutually perpendicular to the pan and roll axes are tilt moves.